A telephone handset, particularly of a public telephone, is a well-known transmitter of disease. A statistical study was made in England indicated that up to 16% of the diseases resulting in absence from work were caught or could have been caught from a telephone. In fact it is widely accepted that such devices are relatively unhealthy, often harboring entire colonies of various types of bacteria capable of infecting the user with a communicable disease.
Sprays are known, normally for office use, which are employed to disinfect a telephone mouthpiece and earpiece. Such a spray is normally simply alcohol that is misted over the part to be disinfected to kill bacteria thereon. Such as expedient is, however, relatively impractical for a public-telephone user.